


sawdust on your face

by Theboys



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Injury, M/M, Pre-Stanford, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Season/Series 02, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 20:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10257506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theboys/pseuds/Theboys
Summary: Dean gets his eyes back right as his brother leaves them for the first time.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellhoundsprey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/gifts).



> so. not exactly what i promised you.  
> but then i thought, the real gift is the abo masterpiece i'm working on (you know the one that you really want) but please accept this in lieu of fucking [White Lies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9907985/chapters/22202357%20target=) because you ruined me (with tears and wicked plot devices) so i think you should cry a bit, too.
> 
> title appropriated from a song called "no resistance, no demons" which is sort of apt, too, now that i think of it.

Dean gets his eyes back right as his brother leaves them for the first time.

It’s astounding.

He goes from the darkest night to the inaudible blare of the sun with such abruptness that he almost misses his brother’s exit.

His father’s screaming behind them, loud and unfettered, telling Sam to leave

_ Don’t you come back if you walk out that door _

And then he’s here.

He tilts his face up to meet his brother’s, follows the trajectory of sound that Sam’s emitting.

Sammy’s looking right at him, impenetrable and unashamed. It’s the way you stare when you’re positive you won’t get caught looking, and Dean stumbles over his words because maybe Sam’s been glaring at him like this since forever.

“You’re leaving, then,” Dean says, tries to staunch his trembling but Sam’s dimples are hidden and his face is so hard.

He’s got a scar Dean’s traced but never seen, and Dean can hear the abject horror in his father’s voice.

What’s gonna happen when he’s stuck with his poor, handicapped son?

“You heard him,” Sam says, and his eyes haven’t once left Dean’s face.

It makes him seem naked, more so than he ever felt before. He feels like a spine-broken book.

“I heard him,” Dean says, “but what’s that mean for you?”

“I can’t stay here.”

“You don’t need to do anything.”

His little brother laughs. 

Dean comes up to his shoulder, if that.

“I just need to get to the bus station. I have my ticket. The dorms open this week and I got a full ride,” Sam says, a calm flood. “I don’t need to do anything.”

“I’ll take you, then. I’ll drop you off.” Dean is sure his own face is something ugly to behold but Sam’s mouth twists and he reaches out, runs both fingers over Dean’s ruined eyes. He doesn’t seem shocked. He was always the optimist. Determined that this couldn’t last forever. Seems he was right about that, too. 

“Do I look like you remember?” Sam’s voice cracks on the last word, and Dean’s skin burns where his brother touches him with reverence--calloused digits over lids. 

“I don’t remember anything.”

-

It’s a feat, even for them, that he and his brother never once talk about the miraculous recovery of his sight.

Better yet,

They let Dad find out on his own.

-

Sam’s at home.

He’s sitting in the backseat, all doors locked from the front.

Dad’s having a quick word with the local commissioner and Dean should probably be in bed. He’s beat.

Sammy’s thirteen and couldn’t hold his eyes open anymore and they figured it’d be easier to let him sleep than to drag him back out to McDonald’s or wherever.

Dean’s holding the brown bag, soggy and greasy in his hands.

They’re not supposed to eat in the car but his stomach is growling so bad and they haven’t stopped for a bite since Albuquerque.

The paper rustles loudly in the dark. 

There are fries on top, slightly wilted, and Dean knows Sammy won’t eat those. He’s breathing through his mouth, which is strangely loud in the confines of the car, when there’s a sound.

It’s not a big noise, more like a clatter of something dropped, but he sets the bag beside him and reaches into the back of his pants, curls a hand around the barrel.

He can’t see anything from where Dad parked them but the noise comes again, the same exact metal-chime of something hitting the earth.

_ There’s no such thing as coincidence _

He slithers his body into the front seat, right leg catching in the headrest. The toe of his other boot is caught in the footwell and he makes a strangled sound.

The noise dissipates as soon as he makes it, and for a moment, there’s nothing.

He gets the rest of his body into the passenger sleep and slouches as low as he can, wipes the chilled sheen of sweat from his forehead.

He’s gonna count to fifty and if Dad isn’t out he’s just gonna go in. He’s gonna get yelled at, sure, but it’s too dark out here to see well, and Dad’ll want to know that he heard something weird.

He’s on thirty-two, following the cadence of his breath when he hears it for the last time.

His head pops up, top of blonde to the window-edge and he catches a flash of silver---gossamer thread of rainbow light. It stutters to a standstill in his right eye and the entire car rocks with a bang.

Metal twists and Dean flies sideways into the dash and then backwards into the wheel and everything is silent minus one long, extended hum.

-

Sam looks good.

He’s taking twenty credit hours this semester and is involved in some sort of work-study program in between them.

It’s IT related and he leaves the house every morning at five to go to the gym on Galvez Street. He comes back at 8:15 precisely and leaves the house by no later than 8:35.

He’s got class from 9 to 6 and then he leaves PoliSci 122: Introduction to American Law (he’d had to scope the front of the door for that one) and heads to work.

He’s done by nine in the evening.

He’s not sure when the kid is sleeping, but he trudges back to Wilbur Hall every night looking none the worse for the wear.

Dean’s in month three of his self-imposed check-up when he realizes that Sam’s got friends. There’s a dark haired boy who is several inches Sam’s junior, and three other guys who Dean recognizes from Sam’s 3-6 lab. There’s no shortage of female friends, either, and Dean’s cognizant enough to see that Sam’s bulking up, whether for protection or self-interest, he can’t tell.

He’s gonna be nineteen years old soon.

The Impala is three blocks away; he doesn’t trust Sam not to scope it out. 

Sam slings his arms around two girls, gregarious, and Dean’s eyes follow him all the way up the steps and into the dining hall.

-

When he wakes up, there are hands cradling his face.

They’re too small to be Dad’s, and he groans out something unintelligible, something he hopes resembles Sam’s name.

“You hit your head!” Sammy says, too loud, and Dean can hear him clap a hand over his mouth in chagrin.

“You hit your head,” he repeats, softer, and Dean laughs but the sound makes his temples ache and the it coalesces into a groan instead.

“Dad went to check the perimeter,” Sammy says imperiously, and then he’s scrambling up--they’re on the one bed; Dean’s jostled. 

“Can you sit up? Does it hurt?” Sammy’s fingers are careful as they scrape over his scalp, and Dean can see the hazy outline of silver.

“One at a time, Sammy,” Dean says, and Sam leans back, cool rush of air where his little body was.

“I gotta--I’m gonna check your pupils,” Sam says seriously, “if they’re dilated then you have a concussion and you should stay awake.”

Dean can hear Sam’s leg bouncing underneath him and he can feel himself smiling despite it.

“Grab the flashlight,” he says, and Sammy’s up with a bound, quietly shuffling to the other side of the room.

He opens his eyes.

“Huh,” Dean says, tongue-mouth thick and Sam’s walking back,  _ click on click off click on  _ of the light.

“Can you--hold still, Dean. Focus on the light, kay?” 

_ Click on _

_ Click off _

Sam’s breath, too close to his nose, a little to the right.

“Dean. You’re not even tryin,’” he pouts, brackets himself in between Dean’s spread thighs. More air huffed out, louder. Frustrated. 

“You want Dad to do it instead?”

“Huh,” Dean repeats, and now Sammy’s warm chest is pressed against his own.

“Why’re you--will you just look at me? Why’re you ignoring me?” Sammy’s voice is climbing and Dean can feel the rabbit-echo of his brother’s heart next to his own.

He doesn’t answer, not even when Dad barges in and Sammy’s still babbling and they’re both shaking him so hard he’s on and off as well.

-

On December 10th, Sam leaves his door with a large duffel bag and a hoodie that’s rapidly becoming too small for him.

Dean shouldn’t even be in town, he’s taken a rather circuitous route and he’ll pay for that once he meets up with Dad again, but his brother heads to the benches at the front of his Hall and sets everything down, leans backwards and closes his eyes.

Dean wants to shake him, slap him upside the head for being so  _ common,  _ so unaware, but there’s a soft sound to Dean’s left and when he drags his gaze back toward Sammy, his little brother is already standing, alert.

There’s a chuckle, choked off, and then, “I was trying to sneak up on you--” lilted laughter. “I always won hide and seek as a kid,” Sam says, almost too soft for Dean to make out.

He’s being very creepy.

“Sure you did. You could just pretend to be another tree, huh?” 

Dean can see her now, short and black-haired, everything tucked up into a bun. She’s got a purse strapped around her shoulder and she’s wearing a long dress that drags against the ground when she moves.

“Are you ready? I parked across the street,” she says, points behind her with one thumb.

Sam smiles, even though he’s looking down-down and Dean can’t really make out the shine of his teeth from that angle. 

“You gonna carry my bag for me?” He teases, easy and fond, and Dean places it then, that cadence.

His brother’s flirting with this girl and she squints up at him in faux-anger. “I don’t know why I invite you anywhere,” she sighs, pretends to reach for a duffel that’s almost her size.

“I do,” Sammy says, tone flipped, and Dean has to turn, jogs back the way he came.

There are no leaves on the trees.

There are things he doesn’t miss. 

-

Sammy cries for three days.

He’s only cried maybe twice before, once when he broke his arm jumping off of the roof, right after Dean, four years old.

The second was when he first understood what it meant to be motherless--  _ no more discussion, Sammy. _

He’s crying now, from great, choked sobs to small sniffles.

He’s got one wet hand pressed into Dean’s, doesn’t seem to mind that his brother won’t squeeze back.

“We’re in--Dad, Dad, where are we?” Sam whispers-loud and Dean strains for any sound from his father’s direction, but he gets none, and then--”halfway to South Dakota. Stop bothering your brother, Sammy.”

Sammy’s wet nose presses against Dean’s collarbone, so sudden that he flails, makes a kind of whine he’d be ashamed of if he had anything left. 

“What did I just say?!” Dad says, not yelling but twice as firm, and Dean can feel Sammy tense next to him, thirteen years old and rearing up for a fight.

Dean moves, drags his right hand down upholstery, snakes it up next to the heat from Sammy’s thigh.

He moves that same hand a little to the right and squeezes at the muscle until Sam settles with an audible squeak.

“We’re gonna see Uncle Bobby,” Sam says needlessly, thirty-seven and a quarter minutes later.

-

He doesn’t make another visit until half a year later.

It’s very hard.

He and Dad get along well enough, but Dad looks at him sometimes like he’s seeing the ghost of his youngest son and Dean can’t sit with it.

He stares at Dean long and hard until he remembers that Dean can see him now, that Dean’s green eyes are meeting his own, just as steady.

John doesn’t look away for a long moment, clears his throat like he’s been zoned out.

His father is a different person. There are lines in his face and salt in his hair and Dean wonders why he never saw his father as he was, Before.

-

It’s summer when he sees his brother again.

Sammy is working long hours at a different place, a server at some decently trendy bar downtown.

He’s got facial hair, neatly trimmed like he’s trying to look older.

He has a crisp white button down to wear, sometimes comes home with a new one while the old is wine-stained, and black slacks, nicely tailored to his long legs.

It’s not often he’s seen Sam in things that fit him, and it suits the kid.

He’s got on a hoodie of his own, too conspicuous in his usual get-up, and he keeps his head down as his brother makes his way to the curb and to the new-old car he’s somehow procured.

Dean wants to trade, take the old Honda and let Sammy ride so he feels at home, but to do that he’d have to expose himself, and he doesn’t think he can do that, not ever.

Sam keeps it cleaned; it doesn’t make any weird noises when he starts it up and Dean sighs with the knowledge that the kid was at least listening when Dean talked. 

He’s halfway to considering following in the Impala but that’s sick, even by his standards, and if Sammy knows what he’s been up to, he’ll never live it down.

Sam’ll also never let him come back.

He just likes to know for himself, alright?

-

It was never meant for him.

That’s the general consensus. He got caught in some kind of magical crossfire and now he’s blinded with no hope of recovery.

They need to find a white witch willing to undo any lasting damage, and it turns out that it’s hard to get anyone to mess with this kind of black magic.

The doctors tell them there’s no reason as to why he shouldn’t be able to see.

No shit, Sherlock.

They get him a cane.

It smacks Sam in the knee when Dean throws it, so violent that his little brother curses like a sailor and the words are bigger than he is.

He’s not sorry.

-

He saves a small town from a grindylow in the fall, but not before it’s eaten eight children and wounded two more.

The people are grateful but in mourning, and they don’t bother waving him goodbye.

All of his clothes are soggy, and it didn’t stop raining in Washington, not once, while he visited.

He’s seven hours from Stanford.

He’s not quite dry when he arrives, loaded up on six slim jims and a coffee so black it was pretty much tar.

He’s riding the leftover rush of adrenaline and he’s ignored all his Dad’s calls, focuses on the sliver of sunlight that his blinders can’t hide him from.

It beams right up into his eye, makes it water from the inside out.

He parks two blocks back and strips behind the car, gets into a clean t-shirt and a zip-up over top that. He digs around in the false top of the trunk for a baseball cap and jams that on his head too.

Sam would recognize his hair from a mile away, regardless.

He slams the whole thing closed and takes off at a not-a-run, so help him God.

He knows what Sammy’s supposed to be up to at nine at night, but things change. He hasn’t been by as often as he needs.

He rounds the corner to Sam’s Hall, a different one this year, Toyon, or something like that, Dean recalls.

There’s a crowd of people outside when he arrives, and he tries to blend in, something he’s never been as good at as his brother or Dad.

He’s pretty sure they’re protesting something, signs and voices raised in anger, and he wishes he’d thought of what to do in an instance like this.

He’s about to go sleep it off, he’s fading fast, when he sees the top of his brother’s head, uncovered and roving wildly.

Dean has a sudden, horrifying moment where he thinks Sam’s gaze has finally locked on his, but he realizes Sammy’s looking at something above his head and he lets out a crippling sigh of relief.

It’s a girl, not the same one Dean sort-of met the first year, but a blonde one, bright-shiny hair that makes Dean’s stomach twist uncomfortably. 

Her hair’s in thick curls around her ears and she’s wearing a red school shirt and it looks like she’s brandishing a sign or two under her arm.

“I brought you one!” She hollers, and Dean can make out every syllable because she grazes right past him, just for a second, and then he’s swallowed by the mass of students who can afford to be Like This.

“You what?” Sam yells back, but Dean can’t make that out, reads his brother’s lips even though he’s long out of practice.

She says something else, facing away from Dean now, and then she’s pressing a board into Sam’s unsuspecting arms and his brother throws his head back with a guffaw that would seem forced if Dean didn’t know that every expanse of air was real.

For just a second, so quick it almost goes unnoticed, he can see the silver wink in his vision.

-

Even the silver fades, eventually, and Dean’s eighteen and real used to how his life’s going.

Dad won’t willingly take him anywhere and because all he can do is hear, he listens for the confused sounds of pity emanating around him, and Sammy becomes a fighter.

He’s slow to anger, or he can be; Dean riles him up just for the sake of feeling that hot rush of heat that’s as close to sight as he’s ever gonna get.

Sammy’s close to his own height, probably an inch or two under, and Dean listens for every shift in the vibration of his voice so he can tell where to look.

Sam keeps one hand tucked just out of sight, under Dean’s elbow, and he’s stopped fighting his brother on it, since Sammy’s thinks it’s this or the cane.

There’s no Here or There. There’s only right now.

Dad wants to take Sam with him on long trips and Dean says that’s fine, good, no point in everyone going off half-blind, laughs real long at his own jokes. God. He’s funny.

Sam slaps him on the shoulder none-too-gently, tells John that he’s got class, someone should hang out with Dean, just in case.

Dean wants to know, in case of what?

So he asks. Loudly.

“What exactly am I gonna get myself into that I haven’t already got myself into?” Dean turns to each of them, knows his father is to the left, by the table, and Sam is next to him, a stable presence on his right side. 

“You think I’m just gonna bust outta here? Like Daredevil, huh?” Dean snorts, leans backwards until his spine connects to the quilt and dust flies up around the two of them.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, anger evaporating as fast as it arrived. 

“I don’t wanna go,” Sam says after a pregnant pause, in which Dean assumes all the seeing-eye people in the room had a heated, albeit silent, discussion.

“You can go alone,” Sam adds, and Dean rolls over onto his side.

-

When Dean is ten years old, he gets stuck in the rotting basement of a woman whose husband is still terrorizing the grounds.

It’s rank, and Sammy is six years old, locked in the backseat of the Impala some four blocks away.

Sam doesn’t cry, isn’t a particularly talkative kid unless something excites him, and so Dean knows he’s curled up on his side with each individual Narnia book, minus the fifth, but that’s because Dean couldn’t find any decent copies.

That’s a sobering thought, and it’s the one that grounds him when he tries to feel his way from wall to wall. 

His monitors his breathing. Ten in and out measures. He’s on a thirty count when he hits what feels like the door.

He blinks rapidly and squashes down the insane, incendiary urge to scream for his father.

The doorknob is warm, almost verging on hot, and his hand stings as he tugs backwards with all his might. Nothing happens except Dean might’ve pulled a shoulder blade out of socket.

He makes a small noise of distress and stills. That’s enough to alert the right person listening and Dean switches from breaths to beats, the erratic chase of his heart.

There’s nothing after two minutes and he touches the knob cautiously, three splinters underneath his nails in an effort to locate it a second time.

There’s dust in the air but he can’t see it, he can only fan his hand in front of his eyes in a desperate attempt to catch anything out of the ordinary.

He braces his foot against the adjoining wall so he can grab the knob with both hands but he’s interrupted by a commotion upstairs, the distinct sound of a shotgun, a smattering of release.

There’s a split second of silence and then:

_ Dean! _

It’s just loud enough to be urgent and his eyes dart around, catch-releasing on nothing, sawdust and cobwebs. The sound of one woman’s decay.

He screams.

-

Sam reads a book on the extent to which Other Senses Sharpen When You Lose the One Most Pivotal, or some other horseshit.

Dean can’t read it, so Sammy might as well be the one to tutor him.

He recognizes enough Braille to get by, only because in the beginning he couldn’t figure out where Sam was at via auditory cues and the kid had enough stealth to grind the pads of his fingers on those strange dots and spell out  _ bathroom, gun, Sam. _

Dean figures out what comprises the  _ m  _ and the  _ y  _ just so he can makes sure his brother knows he’d never forget his own name.

Sam makes too much noise at first, on purpose, stomping on twigs and honestly, at one point, jumping up and down.

Dean shakes his head, takes it in stride. The kid is fifteen and overzealous. He’ll get bored soon enough and he can go back to sitting in his own quiet space.

Dean feints left when he hears Sam going right, and Sammy squeals like it’s his own personal pleasure. 

“You’re making too much noise,” he says, and Sam snorts, high-pitched. “I  _ know,  _ Dean,” he says, in that perpetually affronted tone that adolescents seem to suffer from. 

“Right now, I need you to overcompensate,” he says, pubescent voice cracking in his excitement. “I need you to know exactly where I am, so you can figure out how to do it when I’m not bein’ this loud. I want you to fight me when I’m being just as quiet as Dad taught us.”

Dean doesn’t need eyes to see how pleased Sammy is, but not for the first time, he wonders what the kid is growing up like. 

He’s seen the hair, always too long, but he hasn’t seen his brother in two years. 

Sammy’s voice has begun inching closer to his face, but he doesn’t know what the height resembles, what those stretched limbs are doing in all of Dean’s old clothes.

He doesn’t know what his own clothes look like.

Sam clips him in the side of the head with his fist, potshot.

“You’re not paying attention,” he admonishes, and Dean listens for the scattered call of birds, clip of Dad’s car door closing. A baby is crying down the street. It smells like onions.

“I can’t concentrate,” he says, simply, and Sam makes a different noise; Dean listens hard. Introspective.

“You already know what I sound like,” Sam says at length. “Listen for me.”

The baby won’t shut the fuck up.

-

Sam gets an internship in his third year and moves in with Jessica.

It makes his life simultaneously harder and easier, Dean thinks.

He still has the same piece-of-shit car, lovingly tended to on Sunday mornings. Dean’s tinkered with the thing himself, gone as far as to test the brakes on a spin round the parking lot.

Sam’s out of practice, doesn’t seem to notice anything is amiss the next morning, even if Dean made sure everything was just-so.

He’s working at a law firm, probably doing something along the lines of a paralegal, but security is tight there and Dean can’t really glean too much information when he doesn’t talk to the kid.

It’s around this time that he sacks up just enough courage to call his brother.

He doesn’t want to and he does, desperately. He wants to see his brother, sit down with him and really get his fill of just looking.

It makes him feel as nasty as it did all those years ago, and in the end he calls, as much for himself as for Sam.

He’ll have to stay away now. 

Sam’s gonna be looking for him in every crevice, is gonna see his ghost everywhere.

Sometimes Sam takes his runs outside, and Dean knows that’s his favorite, a leisurely activity he doesn’t really seem to have time for. 

He gets most of his cardio in at the same gym he’s been hitting since he got here, and Dean could sneak in easily, but he figures it’d be too obvious to watch his brother there.

And then, one morning, Sam doesn’t come outside.

Jessica does, at nine on the dot (very punctual people, they are) but she looks mildly frazzled, there’s a visible run in her stocking that Dean’s sure she’ll notice later, and she has trouble unlocking her own car, a much nicer model than Sam’s.

Dean waits, mostly hidden by shrubbery and his own half-assed disguise, for her to peel away.

He waits some more.

There’s no motion in the apartment and Dean’s talking himself down from bursting inside, wondering if Sam let this bitch get the drop on him.

He resolves to call instead, even if he’s sure that Sam’s long since changed his number.

It rings twice and his palms are moist; the phone almost slips from his grasp.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end is raspy, and the syllables are broken up by coughing, deep wheezing, actually.

Dean sighs so heavily with relief that Sam goes silent, and then, “Dean?”

The word is caked with phlegm and he can’t stand the hopefulness in it, like this has something to do with anything Dean ever wanted.

“Dean. Dean, answer me, man. No one calls this phone. Dad---I kept it for you guys.” There’s a pause for coughing, violent in Sam’s chest.

“Just. Ah, fuck you. Fuck you, Dean. Just say something.” Sam’s voice is rising, exacerbating whatever his girlfriend allowed him to catch and Dean’s pulse is hammering so loudly it seems like a separate part of his body.

“Get that cough taken care of. Sounds nasty.”

It’s not what he meant and not what he should but he’s sweating so hard it’s becoming problematic and he drops the phone onto pavement and smashes it underneath his boot, once, twice, four times.

-

He’s a coward.

He doesn’t go back until he loses their father.

-

Jessica is understandably confused. 

She’s also beautiful up close, which fills him with a swell of something like pride for his brother.

Sam doesn’t sound anything like himself.

He’s distant, but Dean’s pleased to note that Sam’s staring hard at him, brow furrowed, protectively ahead of Jessica like Dean’s the monster here.

His vision wobbles, knife-edge through his cornea and then his brother is turning to his girlfriend--they have things to discuss.

Jessica appears more curious than trusting, but she leaves, one last blink at Dean, who doesn’t have eyes for anyone but Sam.

Sam doesn’t look at him for a long time.

-

He doesn’t end up closing his eyes fast enough.

The final slam of the trunk does nothing to obscure his younger brother’s face.

Everything smells like smoke and there’s no silver.

-

He can’t hunt. It’s tongue in cheek, the refusal, and Dean won’t make it real by asking.

Sam isn’t inclined on picking up the slack but it’s him that goes out, all the same, and Dean remains behind, sitting in whatever fucking chair they’ve parked him in before they left.

Dad tells him the location of the rest of their guns, claps him on the shoulder so heavily it’s disorienting, tips him to one side.

Sam is more careful, makes less noise than Dad, but that’s fine, he’s attuned to Sam’s general position, even before this.

He drums his fingers on his legs, counts the bleed of warmth through fabric.

Sam’s pretty silent, even for a kid, but he catches the whisper drag of Sam’s pants against the floor as he shuffles past.

He looks up, unseeing.

“You’re hovering,” he says, slight tilt of his mouth. He reaches one hand up and Sam leans down obligingly, places his chin in Dean’s hand to cradle.

“Huh.” 

“What?” Sam squeaks, eyes widening under Dean’s perusal. 

“Are you getting a beard?” Dean runs his thumb over Sam’s upper lip and the kid shudders, entire body jolting forward. “Feels a little scraggly,” he teases, oh-so-gentle.

Sam’s body is tensed strangely and Dean raises his left hand to join the fray, pulls Sam’s face closer. 

“Need me to show you how it’s done, little man?” he adds, and Sam is unresisting, allows his neck to bend every which way.

He’s seventeen.

He tries to age Sammy’s thirteen-year-old visage in his head but he can’t get it right. All he really can make is the kid grow, stuff a man in a child’s body.

“No,” Sam says, voice dropped, that new range that makes every cell in Dean’s body rigid. It’s hard to call that his brother’s.

“Maybe if you stop shaving your balls with my razor I’d get a better cut,” he stage-whispers, and Dean’s thumbs hook into dimples, craters dug into Sam’s cheeks.

“He’s got jokes!” Dean hollers, even as John clears his throat and Sam reluctantly stands; Dean’s palms fall down and away.

“Hey, dad! Kid’s got jokes!” He’s cackling too loudly, like he can’t stand to hear and his dad doesn’t answer, probably too busy making eyes at Sam.

“Lock up behind us, Dean,” he hears over his own wheezing, and the door closes behind them.

He laughs until he’s crying, arms curled around his middle.

-

“That’d I’d have to kill you.” Dean pauses, leans back against still-cooling metal.

“He said that I might have to kill you, Sammy.”

He squeezes his eyes shut before he remembers that he needs to see, but his brother still looks charred, even after all this time.

Sam starts laughing, feral and loud--louder than Dean’s ever heard in his entire life.

Dean’s eyes widen and he grabs Sam’s sleeve, shakes him violently. “Fuck! Jesus--fuck, will you stop that shit? Fuck! Be quiet!”

“You gotta make sure I don’t what? Turn evil? Become a killer?”

Sammy’s still laughing, tears squeezed from in between soaked lids, and Dean’s fingers are digging into his wrists.

“If you’re not careful,” Sam says, sobering up as quickly as he fell apart, “you’ll have to waste me one day.”

Dean didn’t know his brother could sound like that and Sam stares at him so long that he wonders what else he’s missed.

-

“How many are there?”

“Six. The two big ones look slow, though.”

“Shut the fuck up, Winchester! You went and got back-up from your blind brother, huh? What’re your odds now?”

Dean sighs; it’s hard to hear over Wendell’s yelling, thunderous voice echoing off concrete.

Sammy’s eighteen. Graduating soon. He doesn’t need this.

“I’m _ his _ back-up,” Sammy says cheerfully, and then Dean’s not-so-little brother plasters himself to Dean’s back, all joviality gone from his stance.

It’s a familiar position, John coached them on how to fight this way once Sam had taught him to rely mostly on auditory cues, the whisper of wind as an opponent moved.

_ Sam’s your eyes. You go where he leads. _

Back to back.

“Wendell’s gonna come for me first,” Sam says, and Dean snorts, the linebacker is easily goaded.

Sam grunts as he shifts suddenly, spinning Dean on two feet.

“Down left,” Sam grunts, and Dean listens for the precise step of someone trying to tread lightly.

His foot connects just above the kneecap and his opponent crumples gracelessly, underestimation.

“You’re going over,” Sam says, and Dean widens his arms, chicken-wing style so that Sam can loop his own in the space between.

Sam catapults him up and over his back, Dean’s facing the sun for one shining second before he lands on his feet, chest to chest with his brother.

Sam ducks and Dean’s fist connects with whomever is just behind.

Two. He can hear them yelling, unsure of how to handle his blindness, and the swiftness of a Winchester signature move.

There’s a hit to his side, sharp jab of someone who boxes, and Sam’s voice, “feint right!”

“Good for you,” Dean says, distracted, “got one over on the blind kid.”

It’s terrifying, Dean thinks, in the space of his own head. Not even Sam will ever understand how horrifying it is to be fighting in a 4 x 4 darkroom, his breath the only company.

It’s like being buried alive.

Sam grabs him abruptly and then they’re back to back once more. 

Sam raises him slightly, hunched forward so Dean can lock arms and use the momentum to kick someone in the face with both feet raised.

He breaks a nose, can hear the familiar shatter, but there’s no time to process because there’s an ankle connecting to his own and he has about two seconds to deliver an uppercut to a jaw he almost doesn’t find.

“You should see him alone!” Sam says, and the kid’s voice sounds a little thick, he must’ve taken a hit to the mouth.

“Ah, Sammy,” Dean says, plays along, “they don’t deserve the honor.”

Sam’s not usually big on running his mouth unless he feels that he’s been wronged, and Dean listens to him cackle now, can picture that long neck tilted backwards.

The taste of his own blood does nothing to dilute that.

-

Plausibly, he’s allowed to say that he never saw the kiss coming.

He’s twenty-two years old, hasn’t had sex in three years, and the two where he kept trying were lackluster at best.

His brother kisses like he owns the world and everything in it.

He sucks Dean’s lower lip up and into his mouth, gnaws on it like a teat and Dean’s body bows forward and into Sam’s.

He doesn’t know where they are.

He can’t think.

He can’t hear wind or traffic or movement because there’s nothing but the press of his brother’s naked skin on his t-shirt, sweaty from sparring.

Sam’s heartbeat is strong and it sounds like Dean’s own.

The slick press of young tongue is what does him in, makes him scramble in the cage of his brother’s arms.

“Fuck! Fuck, Sam! I can’t fucking see! I can’t fucking see anything! Let go a’me,” he spits, blurs his words together and Sam does, bless him.

Sam releases but he’s breathing heavily and he’s too close by and Dean can’t see how the kid is reacting to the fucking boner Dean’s now sporting.

“You wanna--you wanna see my face?” Sam offers hopefully, makes a little aborted step forward.

“Jesus! No! I need to think. I need some fucking air,” he says, clips his shoulder against the doorframe and Sam makes a muted sound of distress behind him.

He almost trips over the third step but he can’t stand the visual of Sam having to help him up because he was too out of sorts to pay attention to his surroundings.

He wants to cry but they’re living on a large tract of land and he can’t find the treeline. 

-

“Before all this other freak shit started happening,” Dean says, feels foolish, because it’s dark in the motel room and it’s a little bit like one long, extended sleepover.

“Before the special kids and the--the demon stuff. Did you know?”

There’s no noise from Sam’s side of the room, and it takes Dean a full three minutes to remember that he can just sit up and look if he wants to know what’s going on.

“Sam,” Dean says, exasperated, remembers the certainty in his father’s voice.

The double-edge behind,  _ take care of Sammy. _

“Samuel,” he tries jokingly, it falls flat.

“Go to sleep, Dean,” Sam says.

-

Dean’s adjusting his lapel when Sam brings it up, long hair curtained over one eye.

“I tried,” he says slowly, and Dean grunts his acknowledgement, fuck Windsor-knots.

“I tried to control it, for a long time.”

Dean jabs himself in the thumb with the tie-pin, turns slowly to face his brother.

“You what now?”

“I tried to fix myself,” Sam breathes out, sits up so that he’s ramrod straight on the edge of the bed. “I knew. I probably knew before you and Dad.”

Dean crosses the room and places one hand on Sam’s face, an old habit neither of them flinch at.

“For how long? Did it make you do anything? You feel sick right now?” Dean knows his line of questioning is weak, so he drags his hands across Sam’s face, thumb underneath a nose, the other circling the cleft in Sam’s chin.

“This was always the worst,” Sam confesses, and Dean opens his eyes shamefully. “What?”

“This,” Sam motions, and Dean’s palms stiffen. 

Sam reaches out a preemptive arm; he’s so young. That broad hand wraps around Dean’s waist, so heavy and confining that Dean can’t really catch a breath.

“I don’t know if the fact that you couldn’t see me,” Sam says, “made it any better.”

He drags Dean fully into the V of his legs and Dean doesn’t know why he can’t move his hands.

“I always wanted you. Just like this,” Sam says, sighs, dies.

It’s almost not Dean who moves first, but he’s got hands on his brother’s belt and Sam’s shaking so hard he’s about to come apart.

He doesn’t know what to think of the bulge his brother’s sporting, but he drops hands to knead on that and Sam’s mouth comes open in a perfect O and Dean does not deserve to hold this memory.

Sam’s giant hands come up to grab full handfuls of ass and Sam’s eyes darken so much there’s no pupil left.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dean rasps, and Sam laughs, unheeded. “How was I supposed to explain that I wanted to be in there,” he taps, and Dean flushes so red he starts to run a little hot because of it.

“I don’t--we don’t have anything, Sam,” Dean says, and he may not have done this before but he certainly knows the mechanics of the thing.

“Don’t need it right now,” Sam grits, “I’m gonna come just from giving you some fingers,” he explains, plaintive and bright, Dean’s to desecrate.

“Okay. Okay,” he accepts, and Sam jerks slacks down to knees, followed by boxers and Dean’s dick is slick at the tip, flushed pink, and Dean watches in some amusement as Sam’s dick leaps from behind cotton.

His laugh turns to a startled moan as Sam presses just the tip of one finger inside the dry clutch of him, unforgiving and hot.

He topples forward, spreads his legs as much as he can with the constriction of fabric. He braces his weight with two hands on Sam’s shoulders, and his brother takes advantage.

Sam removes that one finger long enough to press two into Dean’s unsuspecting mouth.

He knows his eyes are wide but Sam must see something he likes because he grins, so savage and possessive that Dean’s got no hope of stifling his full-bodied shiver.

Both wet digits come back, circling like a shark tank and then he’s impaled, just the way he knows he’s gonna like.

“Can you come like this?” Sam asks, desperate, screwing one-then-two fingers deep, setting up a wide, black ache in his ass.

He’s rocking down unconsciously, ugly sounds of desire, broken moans that sound like his brother’s name.

“If you fuck yourself on ‘em,” Sam drawls. “Like that. That’s right. Keep fucking yourself, sweetheart,” Sam says, Sam who read one too many romance novels, Sam, who knows exactly what to say at all times.

Dean splits his ass as wide as he can with not enough lubrication, and his dick jumps at the picture they’re making, stalled in a motel room in Joliet, Illinois, too many minutes behind a case they should’ve solved.

“I wanna know what you look like when you come,” Sam says, and there’s no innuendo in it, genuine desire, and that’s what undoes him in the end, the idea that he’ll have Sam’s reaction seared into his retinas.

His dick leaps, untouched, slaps twice against his clothed belly and then sprays, one sharp shot followed by strong pulses of cream.

His whole body stutters in Sam’s grasp, and Sam’s still got him plugged but neither of them is moving and Dean keeps repeating Sam’s name until he loses his voice.

-

He’s not good company.

He’s not gonna be any kind of company until he gets to Cold Oak.

He’s got Ash’s watch in his pocket and Bobby’s driving, mouth pursed in a thin line.

He fingers the leather band and puts it on his left wrist, tightening to the point of pain.

“How long?” 

Bobby glances at him, careful, as if with a caged animal.

“Fifteen.”

-

The car’s still idling when he pops out, starts blanketing this empty slice of earth.

It’s an abandoned town, from what Dean can see through the darkness, and he’s got one hand on his Beretta when he spies a silhouette, long and lanky, tilted to one side as if in pain.

“Sam!” he screams, throws every last ounce of strength in the yell.

He jogs closer, nudges Bobby.

“It’s Sammy,” he breathes, and Bobby claps one hand on his back, must not trust himself enough to speak.

“Dean!” Sam yells, after a pause, and Dean stalks closer, squints at his brother’s form.

The kid is holding his shoulder, clearly walking wounded. He doesn’t look like he’s got much more than breath left to give, and Dean grins, big enough to get his point across.

Sam responds in kind, his face open and frank in a way Dean hoped he’d get to see again.

There’s a shadow behind his brother, coalescing into the form of a man. The man is moving with too much intent to be friendly, and Sam’s leaning all his weight on his left side. So slow. Too slow.

There’s something winking in his grip--Dean’s vision blurs and the shine of silver is all that’s left.

“SAM! Sam! Look out!”

Full run.

Bobby’s behind, steps faltering.

Sam’s face splits open. His eyes widen and he topples to his knees.

Mouth vast, blood waterfall.

The knife twists into his brother’s back and the assailant runs but Dean crashes to his knees beside his brother, grabs at Sam’s shoulders until the kid is upright. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sam. Sam! Hey! Hey, hey. Come here. Let me look at you.” He grabs at Sam’s neck, ignores the way his brother’s head is lolling on his shoulders.

Sam blinks, so slow, unseeing.

Dean’s vision shudders for the second time that evening and he squeezes his eyes shut and then wide in an effort to clear them.

“It’s not even that bad. It’s not that bad. I got you. I got you. I’m gonna take care of you,” he says, presses one blood-stained hand to the back of Sam’s head.

He’s warm.

“That’s my job, right?”

Sam’s lungs rattle, heavy and chained against Dean’s chest.

He looks at Sam’s face.

Both hands cradled, blood on each cheek, tainted.

Sam’s features phase in and out, like the loss of signal, a dial-tone.

Dean squints, grasps at his sight with both hands.

Sam slumps forward, deadweight.

_ click-off _

He supports Sam’s face in both hands, fingers tracing the whorls and ridges.

He can’t see a damn thing.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for visiting my first wincest in months. i missed these motherfuckers (brotherfuckers)?  
> feel free (i beg desperately, per the usual) to comment!


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